The previous articles in SitePoint’s WebMatrix series have taken you through using the Web App Gallery to build an ecommerce site [1] and find the right CMS [2], building dynamic websites with WebMatrix [3], and hosting, publishing and generating traffic [4] with WebMatrix. In all of that, we acknowledged but didn’t go into much detail about a particular WebMatrix functionality called Web Deploy. That’s because our focus has been on the hands-on pro developer, and one of Web Deploy’s great strengths is that it make publishing a website easier for beginner or hobby developers.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be interested in Web Deploy. In a forthcoming article, you’ll read about why the WebMatrix suite is, in fact, a very handy set of tools for the most advanced developers. For now, let’s dig into Web Deploy.
This article assumes you have either read the earlier articles referred to, or have already installed WebMatrix [5].
In a nutshell, Web Deploy runs on a server and gives you the ability to deploy websites locally or remotely. In doing so, it takes care of a plethora of tasks and processes that might otherwise be handled manually.
WHY WEB DEPLOY?
Developing and designing a website or web application is one thing, but deployment – publishing to a web server – has always been tricky at the best of times. Web Deploy greatly simplifies the migration, management and deployment of websites. Web Deploy not only copies files and folders, it can perform configuration transformation, provision database schemes as well as the data, package dependencies such as COM objects, install SSL certificates and a number of other features.
An example of Web Deploy’s approach is that it use differential uploading to only transfer modified files, saving you time and work.
Web Deploy also supports a .NET based provider API that gives you the ability to create custom deployment actions, so it’s a perfect fit for the enterprise. It’s part of an approach designed to make it easy to move painlessly from having an idea for a website to declaring it open for business.
Read the rest of the article online, and share your comments.
Publishing with Web Deploy in WebMatrix
[1] Web App Gallery to build an ecommerce site [2] Find the right CMS
[3] Building dynamic websites with webmatrix [4] Hosting publishing and generating traffic [5] Microsoft Webmatrix
Thanks to the folks at The SitePoint Tribune for permission to pass this along from their SitePoint Tribune #560
